Combat Hacks
=Combat Hacks= Aggravated Called Shots A called shot to the head, using any kind of weapon or firearm, inflicts aggravated damage. An unarmed strike to the head still inflicts bashing damage, unless the character has some way to inflict lethal hand damage. Targeting the head imposes a –5 modifier. Rationale: Damage to the head with anything hard or fast enough to crack the skull often causes brain damage, and that’s a pretty sure way to kill a person. Automatic Damage The damage modifier on a gun does not add dice to the roll to hit. Rather, the damage is applied automatically provided that the Dexterity + Firearms roll is successful. For instance, if a character with Dexterity 2 and Firearms 1 uses a light pistol (damage 2L), the player rolls three dice. If the player rolls one success, the target takes three points of lethal damage. If the character had been using a shotgun (4L damage plus 9 again), the player would still have rolled three dice, but with one success would have inflicted five points of lethal damage (the gun’s damage rating + number of successes rolled). This rule can easily be applied to hand weapons as well, if the Storyteller wishes. Rationale: Guns are deadly, even in the hands of someone untrained in their use. This hack makes it less likely that an untrained person will hit a target, but if they do, they will certainly injure him. Bleeding Out Any wound that causes at least two points of lethal or aggravated damage, and is inflicted by a firearm, blade, claw or any other source that causes deep tissue damage, begins to bleed profusely. The victim suffers one point of bashing damage each turn the wound is left untended. Bleeding victims can be stabilized with a successful Intelligence + Medicine roll, with a –1 dice penalty for each point of lethal damage caused by the initial wound. Rationale: A gunshot might not kill a person, but the resultant blood loss very easily can. Bone Breakage Whenever a character rolls an exceptional success on an attack made with a blunt weapon or an unarmed attack, the player chooses one of the target’s bones from the list below and shatters it. The effects of the broken bone persist for the rest of the story. Rationale: Hey, bones chip, fracture, and shatter from a bad hit. Combination Momentum When a character successfully hits with a Brawl or Weaponry based attack and the victim attacks the character in response, if the victim’s retaliatory attack misses then the character’s next attack against that target receives a +1 bonus. This bonus is cumulative and lasts until either the original attacker attacks another enemy or the victim lands a successful attack on the character. Like most bonuses, the bonus from this hack tops out at +5. Rationale: When one combatant gains the momentum, he is difficult to overcome until his opponent is lucky enough to turn the tide of battle Freezing Under Fire: Whenever a character is fired upon, the player must roll Resolve + Composure. If the roll succeeds, the character can act normally. If the roll fails, the player must spend a Willpower point for the character to act (this Willpower point bestows no other bonus on any rolls the player might make that turn). If the character has no Willpower to spend, for whatever reason, he freezes up. A character who has frozen up does not receive Defense during that turn. A “frozen” character regains control on his next action, or sooner if a comrade devotes an action to snapping him out of it. This hack does not apply to characters with the Combatant Merit. Rationale: Being shot at is terrifying, even if the shots don’t stand any real chance of hitting. Loud noises trigger our panic responses, and the sound of bullets careening off nearby surfaces is enough to try anyone’s courage. Knife to a Fistfight: When an unarmed character is attacked by someone wielding a melee weapon, the defender applies only one-half of his Defense (round down) against the attack. Merits or supernatural powers that add to Defense are not affected. Rationale: Even master martial artists will tell you that if you’re unarmed and your opponent isn’t, the likelihood that you’ll get royally fucked up increases exponentially, and your best bet is to dodge like hell and try to get away. This hack makes Merits like Brawling Dodge considerably more useful when the bad guys break out knives and lead pipes. (For our purposes, this also includes firearms smaller then size 2) Shooting Through Cover: Subtract the Durability of cover material from the shooter’s dice pool. For example, someone shooting at a target behind a pane of glass would lose one die from his pool, provided that he had a clear view of the target. If the Durability of the cover is higher than the damage rating of the gun, or if the gun does not use solid slugs (a shotgun firing birdshot, for instance), the bullets do not penetrate the cover and the target is unharmed. Bulletproof glass or armor piercing bullets provide exceptions to this hack, of course. The former operates at a higher Durability against bullets, while the latter ignores points of Durability entirely. Rationale: Glass doesn’t provide much of a defense against bullets Watch My Back: Although being ganged up on can be deadly in the World of Darkness, having stalwart friends at your back can even the odds. For every ally within your reach, you ignore one point of Defense reduction due to multiple attackers. For example, if three of your friends are within arms reach during a fight, you can be attacked by up to four opponents before your Defense starts to drop on the fifth. Rationale: This hack encourages characters to stick together and fight as a team, especially when outnumbered. Distractions: A changeling's player can spend a point of Glamour to add the character’s Wyrd rating to his Defense for a turn. This is a reflexive action, and it does not work on other changelings or on ensorcelled humans. Onlookers have a hard time drawing a bead on the changeling; his form seems inconstant and shaky. Rationale: Faeries are renowned for disappearing in a twinkling of the eye. This hack plays into the legends, allowing changelings to use magic defensively. Slowering Healing: Similar to Injuries Last (above), this hack increases the time necessary for characters to recover from wounds. Healing time for bashing damage is now one point per hour of rest (if you’re using this hack, you might also consider Weapons Kill, below). Healing time for lethal damage increases to one week per point. Healing time for aggravated damage increases to one month per point. Getting stabbed, therefore, can easily take a month or more to heal to the point that the character is no longer inconvenienced. If damage “wraps” from lethal to aggravated, or if the character suffers some kind of supernatural attack, he can easily feel the effects for several months. Rationale: Our bodies heal, given medical attention and good treatment, but it takes a while. Anyone who’s suffered a sports-related injury can tell you that even years later, the body doesn’t forget. Close Distance: A character with a higher initiative, can devote their movement towards "keeping up" with their opponent. That way they can keep within defense distance.